Why did the great French director Godard choose to die by euthanasia? How do you evaluate his choice?

The 30-year-old Godard completed his first feature film "Breathless" and subsequently won the Best Director Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Almost at the same time, Rivette made "Paris Belongs to Us", Chabrol produced "Cousins", and Truffaut also released "The 400 Blows". This group of young directors, represented by Godard, emphasize "authorship" and believe that making movies is "writing." The theme of the movie content is also more realistic, emphasizing the flow of life and focusing on showing people's experience and spiritual process. This was called the "New Wave" by journalists at the time. ?

Contemporary Film magazine once wrote: "The New Wave movement has left a valuable film cultural heritage for France and even the world, and its influence has spread to many countries, such as the German New Cinema in the 1960s, the United States New Cinema, Brazilian New Cinema, etc., and even China’s fifth-generation films in the late 1980s followed the aftermath of the French New Wave and entered the international film scene." There is such a dialogue in "Interviews with Godard". Audiences felt that Godard incorporated too many other elements into his work.

1. Religion or some kind of theoretical euthanasia that can produce a self-consistent understanding of death may be the most realistic way to solve the serious problem of death

Rather than uploading consciousness , cryonics.

Godard’s choice of euthanasia is indeed a kind of happiness and luck in life.

Happiness is that he followed his own will and did not leave in a hurry. Fortunately, he had the money and ability to go to Switzerland for euthanasia. Think about it, why did such a great film theorist and artist choose to leave this world when he was not in pain?

Maybe there is nothing in this world that he deserves to miss, or maybe he can no longer find a reason to live for.

He may not be afraid

of loneliness, but he can’t find a reason to stay and live with humans.

I have seen some movies about euthanasia before, and this year there seems to be a story about a sick father who requests euthanasia, played by Sophie Marceau.

It was because of illness that he chose to leave, but Godard chose to leave with a clear mind. He had the right to choose to leave, but it was indeed a loss to the world. Because in recent years, those who have contributed to the process of human civilization have left one by one, and those who remain have not yet inherited their mantles. So where will mankind go in the future?

Second, I only have two words: envy. In the past two years, from time to time, I would see news about a public figure who wanted to understand and chose to go to Switzerland for euthanasia. The word "envy" came to my mind. Of course this envy is not sincere, it is a bit heavy and helpless. After all, I still don’t want to die, but I have to die sooner or later. Under this paradox, how to die comfortably to a certain extent becomes very important. Human beings have been wondering since ancient times how to make death comfortable. In the past, religions, such as Buddhism, the Diamond Sutra, and the Bardo Dharma, were used to try to establish a view of death. ?

Tell the living what it is like to die. Maybe you can come back, but you just don’t remember it, so you don’t have to be so sad. After reading it, I understood the truth, but I was still scared. Afraid of the diseases caused by intubation, afraid of irreversible physical pain, afraid of not being able to say goodbye to this lovely and complicated world. Euthanasia is a very good supplement at this time. Once you understand it mentally, you are no longer afraid of it physically, and it is basically perfect. Even if I can't think of it so clearly and decisively, it can be regarded as a great "support" and comfort, and death may not be so unacceptable.

3. Let the audience feel that his passion for other things has far exceeded his passion for people, and said that people go to the theater just to watch movies. Godard replied: I want to change that. I don’t want people to see my movies the same way they see other movies. You mean you want to change the audience? asked the audience. Godard said: "Actually, I am trying to change the world."

Difficult Godard, where is the “new wave” of art films?

Film is a popular art, but for a considerable portion of the audience, Godard's films may not be so "popular".

This explains to some extent why "acclaim but not box office" seems to be a long-standing market obstacle for art films. Looking at the international film market, France is the home base of art films. According to "Contemporary Cinema", there are 1,077 art theaters in France with 2,235 screens, accounting for 40.9 of the total number of screens in the country. Art and experimental films also account for a higher proportion of the total box office.

But in recent years, the impact of Hollywood commercial blockbusters has also made French cinema lines see the "niche" of art films. For example, according to statistics,

the latest Spider-Man series "Spider-Man: No Home" sold more than 7.3 million tickets in France, which is an unimaginable number for art films

. ?

4. In China, the National Art Film Screening Alliance, established in 2001, also aims to provide a relatively independent market competition environment for art films. The National Art Federation has more than 3,300 franchise theaters.

"The Last Night on Earth", released in 2019, became a big topic as a non-commercial film with a box office of 282 million. It seems to indicate that art

movies can also achieve great commercial success. The popularity of the film at the box office is largely due to the success of its early announcements.

Art films are gradually entering more and more people’s horizons. Chinese filmmakers influenced by the "New Wave" are successively creating films that pay more attention to life and people in different cultural contexts.

For example, "Into the Dust", released this year, relied on its good reputation to extend its screening period

after its release. The film attracted 3.164 million people into the theater and earned 1.1 100 million yuan in box office.

With the death of Godard, all the representative figures in the "New Wave" have left. Did Godard succeed in trying to change the world? Perhaps

today's movie world has not yet fully entered the scene he expected, but the charm of movies as a content product is that it will continue to exist

. When people later look at Godard's works, the "New Wave" will continue to exert its influence.

5. He returned to Paris at the age of 18 and began to get in touch with movies by attending a film screening in the Lardin district of Paris. At the film festival, Godard met a large number of figures who later became the representatives of the French New Wave of cinema with him, including Andre Bazin, Claude Chabrol, Francois ·Truffaut et al. André Bazin founded Cahiers du Cinéma, now the most prestigious publication in film criticism, and Godard, Eric Houmet and Jacques Rivette turned to write for it . But in the subsequent years, this group of film critics have turned to film directors. ?

The successful paradigm of the movie world was created by Hollywood. Large companies such as Paramount, Fox, and MGM control the discourse on "what is a movie?" A story that can attract the audience, ups and downs of the narrative, influential star actors, and universal values ????are the standard features of a good mainstream movie.

But Godard and others believe that the essence of film is realism. He put forward the slogan "Movies are reality at 24 frames per second" and believed that classic Hollywood movies are a false screen world that separates art and life.